


Broken Right Hand.

by twitchtheplaguerat



Series: The Last of Us 2 - After-Canon stories [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Gen, Healing, One Shot, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitchtheplaguerat/pseuds/twitchtheplaguerat
Summary: Ellie tries to sleep, and gets a moment of happiness.
Series: The Last of Us 2 - After-Canon stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817692
Kudos: 20





	Broken Right Hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are from The Broken Right Hand of God by Cult Leader. 
> 
> So, TLOUp2, huh?
> 
> This is based on a fanfic I wrote last year that was post p1 when Ellie was a bit older, but I've just.. updated it to be post p2, to explore some stuff considering it was left open-ended. This was a "Ellie and Joel have a nice moment" fic, and I turned it into something else.
> 
> Please enjoy.

Ellie would rather be anywhere else than here. A beaten down building with the above floors overwhelmed with infected above them – the creaking and groaning of both infected and old-world architecture filling the air. It felt like the ceiling could cave in any moment. At least the doors to the stairway – a few meters outside of the office canteen where she’d snuggled away in – were tightly sealed and barricaded, so the clickers living in the stairwell didn’t bother her.  
What anybody but Ellie may have called a beautiful day turned into a miserable evening. Thunder rumbled outside, which made the groaning above even worse – with every violent clap rose sickening screeching. Every flash made Ellie flinch, who lay under Joel’s old deerskin coat on a disused, decayed sofa. Every moment she began to drift off into her hopefully peaceful sleep, she felt like she could see Joel in the corner of her eye. It kept her awake.  
She felt too alert, too restless. Her heart was in fight mode while her head forced her into rest mode. She knew somewhere, deep down, that she was safe here – but nothing around her made her feel safe. The groaning, the shuffling, the thunder rumbling, the spectre haunting the corners of her vision. Ellie resisted the urge to stand up and begin pacing, confident if she waited long enough, she’d fine herself calming down – yet her stomach was too tightly knotted to imagine being calm, keeping the deep-seated discomfort omnipresent. Exhausted by her own brain, eventually she passed out.

_**The road is endless and paved in misery** _   
_**Tears fall and turn into glass** _

The gentle sound of plucked strings filled the canteen. The building, empty of the groaning from above, became filled with a type of mystical love that hadn’t touched it in years. Hazy sun rays broke through the shattered remains of the front of the office block, casting the room in orange hues. Ellie’s body shook with every vibration of the strings, every bum note and incomplete chord.  
“Gettin’ less with those mistakes, kiddo.” Joel’s warm voice came from in front of her, she couldn’t believe she didn’t see him sitting in the dusty, barely stable office chair across the short room. Ellie felt herself stop playing and smiled at him weakly. She gave a positive grunt in response, trying not to lose what little focus she had.  
Joel tried to hum along with her, moderately out of tune and unable to keep up with her own licks and flare she added to each song, even songs he taught her long ago. She always outdid his memory of the tunes, almost to the point she could lay down new lyrics and call this her own song. For now, she replaced and added chords, reversed a note progression here and there.  
It felt like just yesterday that Joel had taught Ellie the fundamentals; and yet here she was still unable to hit full chords, making all of her songs sound messy and wrong – without the special flare she liked to add, at all. This was the drastic opposite. She flexed her hand on the fret board and tried again. Same sloppy chords, she flexed, shook her hand, returned to the fret board. Becoming panicked, Ellie darted her eyes to Joel, who had begun to slump in his chair. She didn’t look long before going back to her guitar.

_**Step after merciless step we’re shredded to the bone  
We bleed, we grow callus** _

She removed her hand from the fretboard, held it out in front of her, and slowly flexed her hand. Her fist shook as she closed it, her 4th and 5th finger refusing to bend. “You’ll get it someday,” rang out Joel’s voice again, this one made her jolt in her seat, “you have to learn to adapt to it. Learn to make the same chords with less fingers,” she felt a swelling in her chest and adjusted uncomfortably. She continued to stare at the floor and refused to look up. She could make out Joel lying flat just above her eyelids.  
She blinked and he was back in his chair, beaming at her with his soft, fatherly face. She smiled back at him weakly, both out of genuine happiness and out of stiff unease. The more she remembered of the past five minutes, the less she could remember if this was a dream, or a real memory. Ellie tried to relax; she’d been holding herself so stiff-upright that her hips were beginning to ache.

_**Our great reward is waiting  
** **Shining bright in the distance** _

“You seen these little tape-snails?” Joel asked her, pulling the drawer next to him open, full of small tape dispensers. Ellie felt like she’d forgotten his dad instincts, yet they made her giggle, nonetheless. She thought to respond, yet she made no noise, and Joel carried on as if she had. “Ain’t seen none of these in years.” Ellie sat and watched him take out a couple and put them in his pocket. The tape would be useful, yet she knew he’d show it to uncle Tommy when they made it back to Jackson. Jackson. Hang on, why were there _so_ many tape dispensers?  
She shook her head and returned to her guitar, still adamant on getting those chords right even with her lack of fingers. She could adapt later. She wanted to play it _right_ now. The frustration still built in her chest.  
Ten minutes passed. Ellie sighed and put the guitar down next to her. Joel continued to smile at her, and she rubbed her sore eyes with her hands before locking eyes with him. He looked so different now. What with his _llsuk dvace in_ and the _dbloo on hsi ecfa_. Her thoughts jumbled and jammed, and she struggled to un-jumble and un-jam them.

“You tired yet?” Ellie nodded slowly at Joel.  
“I want to sleep so badly.”  
“Then do, ain’t no one here to stop you.”  
Ellie’s eyes felt heavy and she felt the swelling in her chest come up to her eyes. “I’m so tired.”  
“Then sleep, what on Earth are you stallin’ for?”  
Ellie’s brain hit a wall and she couldn’t make it stop. She felt unable to move and became more and more uncomfortable. She wrung her hands together so tightly her bones began to hurt. She thought about her past future and everything she thought she’d have, and how soundly she’d be sleeping, she thought about having Joel hold her and lover her again.

_**Passed empty houses, we must walk on  
We leave or are left behind** _

A pit formed in her stomach and she tried to choke out an answer, before the scene twisted and disappeared from view. She woke up, lying on her back on the disused sofa, unable to move, the sight of Joel’s vacant body playing on her eyes in the corner of the room in front of her. She tried to squeeze her eye shut and chanted to herself to stay calm. She tried to gently move her toes, working from her feet, to her legs, to the rest of her body, until she could move.  
Ellie sat upright, sweating in her moulding, tattered clothing. She brought her clammy hands up to her face and pressed her eyes closed, unable to scream, or cry, or say anything. She lost it, again. A thunderclap sounded and the screams from above rung out before quietening once more. Her chest heaved into a throaty sigh, quaking her whole body on the outward breath. Steadying herself, Ellie slowly moved herself to lie down again – foetal, clutching onto the fire-blanket she had found on one of the lower floors of the office block. The building creaked while she worked on relaxing her body. If only _nida saw hree_ to help calm her down.  
She steadied her breath and shook memories and could’ve-beens out of her head, trying to focus on the present (however unpleasant this was). She looked up meekly and took in her current surroundings: decaying floorboards and wallpaper. Rusting sideboards and chairs. Her breath slowed and she felt herself calm some.  
Ellie attempted sleep once more, Joel’s voice still ringing in her ears.

_**We must walk on**   
**We must walk on**   
**We must**   
**We will fail** _


End file.
